Chapter Five

Derek Morgan awoke to the ringing of his cell phone at 6:15 am. "This better be Hotch," he mumbled, leaning over to fumble for the phone on the nightstand. He didn't open his eyes. He had a headache - the result of too many beers the night before and too little sleep. His hand bumped the phone and it fell to the floor. "Dammit!"

He climbed out of bed and turned on the lamp. Morning light was just creeping in through the drawn curtains. The strains of a technical "Hawaii Five-0" theme screamed at him again as he scanned the floor before the nightstand and under the edge of the bed. Why couldn't Hotch bug Prentiss, or Reid? Reid had only had one drink, as usual. He was always up anyway at the crack of dawn. "Where is it?" he yelled to no one. He located the phone inside his shoe, and flipped it open. "WHAT?"

"Agent Morgan?," came a female voice. Who was that? Familiar. His mind scrambled to place it. Not Prentiss, not J.J., not Penelope... "I'm sorry it is so early. I'm sorry..."

"Yeah?"

"It's Aubrey. Bennett."

Morgan softened his tone. "Aubrey. What is it? Everything okay?"

"No."

"What happened?"

"I'm downstairs. I tried to call Dr. Reid too, but he isn't answering my call... I have, there is someone with me you need to speak with. It's important."

"OK." Morgan paused to shake the sleep from his face, trying to clear his head. "Where's Reid?" Realizing suddenly that it was a stupid question to ask her, he continued, "I'll be down. Give me fifteen."

Twenty minutes later he stood outside Reid's room and banged on the door. "Reid!"

The door opened immediately and an astonished, fully-dressed and groomed Reid looked at him frowning. "It's 6:30, Morgan. What are you doing?"

"Why aren't you answering your phone? Come on, we gotta go."

"I am answering my phone. Why didn't you call me?"

"Because Aubrey says you aren't answering your phone. Come on."

"Where are we going?" They trotted down three flights of carpet-covered stairs - because Morgan liked the exercise and Reid hated elevators - and as they did, Reid thought about the fact that he had ignored Aubrey's call when he had seen it on his phone. Last evening had left him confused. It was stupid, really. A girl in a town half-way across the country from his home in Quantico - what sense would it make? And she didn't...she wouldn't feel anything for him anyway. The case had simply made her worried last night, and made her turn to him in a way she wouldn't have otherwise. And he didn't want to invest his feelings in her any further. He wanted the case to end, and to go home and forget about her.

Aubrey was waiting for them when they reached the bottom of the stairs, in a quiet corner of the lobby away from foot traffic. She was turned away from them and gazing out the window as the light rose over the town. The early dawn sunlight had formed a halo around her hair. Once more, its color startled Reid. She turned as they approached, but didn't offer her usual warm greeting. Instead she helped the young girl seated beside her to her feet.

"Leah," breathed Reid. The girl was dressed in modern street clothes..jeans, plain blue T-shirt, sneakers. Modest and nondescript. Her long hair was plaited down her back. She stood nearly as tall as Aubrey, and seemed older than she had in Amish dress a few days before. Her face betrayed her anxiety as she glanced up at the two men. Her gaze fell on Dr. Reid and stayed.

"Leah left her grandfather's house this morning and came to find me. They usually rise before sunup," said Aubrey. "I think she needs to say some things to you."

"Is there somewhere quiet we can go?" asked Reid to anyone with an answer, his face softening as he looked at the girl.

They found a quiet table in the sunny restaurant of the hotel, and when they sat down, Reid suggested they have breakfast. He knew that food was a calming influence, and a social ice-breaker. He always felt easier with a fork and a cup of coffee in his hands when sitting across a table conversing. He assumed that Leah might feel the same. Aubrey sat quietly with her arm over the back of Leah's chair and let the men take the lead in the conversation. Her eyes had not met those of Spencer; she was thinking of the knock on her door before the morning sun rose. Griff had barked a warning and Aubrey had shushed him as she undid the locks, having glimpsed the silhouette of a buggy outside. Leah's face had met her, crying softly on the porch, hugging her arms around her plain blue Amish dress. After ten minutes of listening to why the girl was at her door, she knew she needed to find the BAU. She had given Leah her own clothing, so as not to attract attention to the already terrified girl.

"Leah," Reid said, "you must have a good reason to have come from your grandfather's house all the way to town. Can you tell us what you told Aub.. .Miss Bennett?"

The young girl sighed deeply, looking down at her plate, stirring her eggs absently. "My uncle was there."

Morgan glanced at Aubrey.

The girl continued,"He was there, and I saw him. I lied before."

Reid's gentle voice soothed,"I don't think you lied, Leah, you maybe just didn't tell us everything you could have. You need to do that now though. Were there two men, two English men, AND your Uncle Jacob?"

"Yes," came the whisper.

Five minutes into the story Morgan had stopped inhaling his pancakes, and Reid had pushed his half-eaten Eggs Benedict aside. Aubrey felt her eyes sting and determined not to cry as she listened: Leah had seen her uncle, and had seen much more. She had been taken to the barn with the two adult women. She had watched the men beat and torture the women - taking their time, merely entertaining themselves - and Leah had stood tied to the frame of the barn door as they were both raped and hung. Her young cousins had been locked in a lean-to shed on the side of the barn while all this took place, and she had listened to them screaming - her cousin Michael's voice growing hoarse with the strain, her cousin Abby's smaller voice sobbing wildly. Her Aunt Lydie and Mama cried and begged for the beatings to stop, and begged and screamed as they realized the ugliest moments of their assault were yet to come. These sounds had seemed to roar into her ears as she stood trying desperately not to watch the bloody mayhem in the barn, and unable to look away.

Her uncle had come then to untie her, and she realized that she wasn't to be killed, but had been made to watch. The three children were marched through the dark field at a pace that left their leg muscles burning. Leah had clung to Abby's hand, and she had exchanged terrified glances with Micheal as they went, the men behind them carrying shovels and an ax that they had taken from the barn. Leah had felt the skin shiver on her back as she thought about the steel of the ax behind her as they walked.

They had come to the paved highway then, and she saw a van packed there waiting. One English man got inside and another slid the back door open and ordered the children to get in. Leah had started to climb in after her cousins when her uncle's hand stayed her. He told the man inside that they would be just a minute, and he closed the door.

Taking Leah's arm, he took her into the edge of the field at the side of the road. His grip hurt her arm, but she didn't dare breathe a word. Shoving her roughly in front of him, he stopped and stared at her. "You're going to be worth something to me. I always liked you." His eyes traveled to her feet and back up again. There was a look in his eyes - a mocking, hungry look - that she had never in her young life seen before this night. "Your father took my wife and family. And now, I will take it all from him. You'll be my new wife." She froze. "Kneel down." She couldn't move, and couldn't breathe."KNEEL DOWN!" He bellowed.

Leah had done what she was told to every day of her young life. She had never defied an adult. And now, she didn't know how to. She didn't want to do what he said, but felt the inevitability of the situation. She lowered her head, looked down at the dark vegetation at her feet, and willed herself to kneel. She knew what he would make her do, because she had seen it done back at the barn. But maybe if she did, then he might allow her to live.

Then suddenly there was a commotion at the van, the sound of a door sliding. And Michael's hoarse voice calling, "LEAH!"

Uncle Jacob turned his head then, back toward the van, and in that moment, Leah found her courage. Courage she never dreamt she would possess. She found herself running faster than she had ever run, across the road, into the woods. She ran until her chest burned so badly that she fell to her knees from the pain. Then she scrambled to the bottom of a tree and sat with her back up against it, trying to quiet her breathing. Leah hadn't heard the van moving down the road as if to leave, and she knew they were looking for her. Or at least one of them was...Uncle Jacob. She heard men's voices, English men, and couldn't make out what they were saying, but they were shouting and angry.

Then she heard a heavy body coming through the trees toward her, and she put both hands hard over her mouth to keep from screaming. Uncle Jacob was furious. "LEAH!" he raged. "I will kill you when I find you!"

She closed her eyes and prayed, willing God to keep her hidden from Uncle Jacob. She knew she had always tried to be good, and she tried to live by God's law every day of her life, as she was taught to. Mama had said God guided the People when they obeyed his laws. Oh, poor Mama! She squeezed her eyes against the memory of her mother's horrified, anguished face a few hours ago as her life had drained away. And Papa had been gone from the farm late in the evening. He would come back home to find it all. He would find the house empty and he would go to the barn to check the animals, and find the bodies. And then he would look for her, and Michael and Abby, and find them gone. Thinking of her father's grief as he found everything as it should not be, she felt her heart break for the hundredth time that night as she sat there praying. And waiting.

Then suddenly she realized that all was quiet. She lifted her head to listen, holding her breath. There was nothing. Perhaps the van had left, while she was praying - only the sound of her pleas to God in her head. But how could she be sure? She stayed silent and waited. She had waited until she say the dawn creep through the tops of the trees. And then, dirty, scratched and bleeding, she had climbed out of the woods and walked across the fields toward home, toward her father's arms.

~~/~~

"Is that your grandfather?" Reid asked Leah, motioning to a parked buggy, as Morgan pulled into the parking lot of the police station.

Amos Yoder was waiting inside . . . and he was angry with his granddaughter. He strode across the lobby toward her as they entered. Reid sensed her cringe beside him and stepped in front of her protectively, as Morgan headed the old man off. "Mr. Yoder," said Morgan as he stepped into Yoder's personal space,"your granddaughter is safe. And you need to talk to us. This time, you need to be straight with us."

Hotch and Rossi were waiting with Yoder. "Come on ," said Rossi,"Let's go talk."

"I will NOT talk to you! I will take my granddaughter home!"

"I'm afraid we aren't giving you a choice this time, Amos," Sheriff Bontrager was saying as he entered the lobby. "We can hold you here and wait as long as you can, until you decide to help us out."

Hotch glanced at Bontrager. He knew they couldn't keep the Amish man indefinitely. He suspected Bontrager was playing on the man's ignorance of that fact to get him to cooperate. As the sheriff led Yoder to the back rooms, Hotch said, "Morgan, you stick with us. Reid, you and Prentiss go find Ezra Troyer. See what you get out of him without Yoder around."

"What about Leah?" Aubrey was asking Morgan. "I don't think she ought to go back home right now until things calm down. Leah, do you want to stay with me?"

The girl shook her head shyly, grateful.

"Wait a minute Aubrey," Morgan said. "They could still be looking for Leah. She saw everything."

"Can we put a guard on the house?" asked Reid.

"We have to get that buggy out of there too, out of sight. I'll talk to Hotch and Bontrager about putting a watch on the house."

Reid had had just enough time to relay Leah's story to Prentiss as they drove toward the Yoder farm, when they came upon a buggy. It rolled toward them slowly down the highway, and as it approached, the man in the passenger seat leaned out and waved an arm high up in the air at them. "Is that him?" squinted Reid.

"Yeah, it is," said Prentiss as she pulled to a stop.

Troyer sprinted toward them as they climbed out of the SUV. The woman driving the buggy waited inside. When he reached them, Troyer's face was flushed, and his eyes red. He showed no shame when he lifted a hand to wipe the wet away from his red-rimmed eyes. He straightened his hat and said nothing, but waited for Reid and Prentiss to speak.

"Mr. Troyer," Prentiss said as she slowly approached him, "do you know Leah is in town? With Ms. Bennett?"

"Yah. My father-in-law, Amos Yoder is there too now."

"Yes, we just saw him." Prentiss glanced at Reid, unsure how to approach the conversation. "He is at the police station now."

"He must tell the truth!" Ezra Troyer's voice cracked. "Leah was hurt!"

Reid stepped forward then, "We know that Mr. Troyer. Leah told us what happened."

Troyer gave Reid a long, steady look. Eye to eye, man to man, as if he wondered what all Reid knew about his daughter's experience. Reid sensed it. A suspected invasion. Of his daughter's modesty, her integrity, of their privacy. ", she did right to tell us. Now we can begin to understand why this happened. Mr. Troyer, do you know that your brother-in-law,...that he was part of this?"

Troyer looked at his feet and hooked his thumbs in his suspenders. "Yah. I do."

"Do you know why he would want to do this?"

Troyer was suddenly animated. "He is not right in the head!" He tapped at his own temple. "Don't you know? He tried to kill his wife once before. She came to live in my house. He is not right in the head, and now he thinks I took his family." Troyer looked out over the fields as if he thought to find something particular in the landscape. He breathed in deeply. His blue eyes filled again. "He took mine ... he took my wife. He ... he hurt Leah."

Reid rubbed his hands together in front of him as he spoke, "Mr. Troyer, do you know where Jacob might have gone?"

Troyer's eyes continued to wander over the corn. "No. I would tell you if I did."

~~/~~

Back at the station, Amos Yoder's demeanor had turned from defense to defeat. Once Hotch and Rossi revealed the details of Leah's ordeal to him, he knew he was beat. He could no longer protect his son from the inevitable long arm of the law of the outside world.

"We take care of our own," he offered as explanation, "Jacob was trying to come back to us, to God. He hated Ezra, that was his illness you see." He looked up at Rossi, who was leaning over the table, looking down at him. "But Ezra prayed for him, for God to heal his heart. We all did."

"Mr. Yoder," said Rossi,"two women are dead. This is beyond God's forgiveness. Jacob is a danger. We have to find him and get your grandkids back safe."

Yoder looked up again sharply at Rossi, "NOTHING is beyond God's forgiveness." he said.

By late morning the entire team had gathered at the station to review the situation. Forensics had come back, and shown evidence of three men: fibers from two sets of clothing, semen from two men, hair from a third man. None of the three were in the database. This was no surprise in the case of Jacob Yoder. The trail coming up dry in the case of the other two men was a disappointment. But they knew that if they found Jacob's whereabouts they might find the children too. Jacob had taken his own children, to take them back from Ezra, back from the history of Jacob's difficult past. But whether he would care for them or harm them, no one could be sure.

"The involvement of the two accomplices almost suggests that there is another motive," Reid speculated.

"Trafficking? Child porn?" added Prentiss.

"They only really needed two men to kill the women," said Morgan. "Why bring a third?"

The beeping of Reid's cell phone interrupted their thoughts. "Excuse me," he said and stepped to the side of the room.

Reid's heart had skipped when he saw Aubrey's name on his phone. He knew a squad car was parked in front of her house and a policeman inside with her and Leah, but he still felt a chill of concern. "Aubrey?"

"Spencer, I need you to come over here. I'm sorry to bother you. But there is something you need to see."

"Are you...are you both all right?" he asked.

Aubrey felt warmth rise over her face, realizing he had been worried about her. "I'm fine. But can you come? Please?"

Aubrey met Reid at the door when he arrived. He stepped into the little house and glanced around at the cozy interior. Books, antique furniture, porcelain plates. Lace curtains. An elegant old-worldliness contrasted with bright, warm colors that appealed to him. The room spoke to him about her interests. A uniformed officer sat on the sofa, reading a magazine. A glass of something cold sat on the coffee table in front of him. Reid nodded at him as Aubrey led him into the kitchen.

Aubrey put a hand on his arm and spoke in low tones as she stood near him. "Spencer, I heard Leah cry out in her room, and I went in to help her. I know she is bruised and sore, so I didn't think anything of helping her. But when I walked in she tried to hide something - Spencer, there is a bite mark on her. A bad one." He thought he saw her lip quiver as she said the last words.

"She is Amish, and like any young girl she is modest, but ... well, this will be hard for her but you need to see this."

Five minutes later Reid was standing in a bedroom and examining a deep, reddish-purple bite impression on the girl's shoulder, as Aubrey gently held her hair aside. Leah wept silently with the shame of baring her naked back to Reid as she clutched her shirt to her chest. His fingers were gentle as he barely touched the wound, mentally measuring the depth of the marks. "Yes... that's a bite all right," he said softly. "Leah, who did that? Was it your Uncle Jacob?"

"No.." she whispered. "It was the other man." Then she said, "I think I knew him. I saw him once in town. But I don't know his name."

Reid looked at Aubrey. He knew she shared his thoughts. This girl had not meant to keep that information from them. She simply lacked the sophistication to realize how important it was. She had no knowledge of the forensic intricacies of a police investigation. Without the years of crime drama on television that other kids had, she wouldn't have considered it. Her world was far simpler. "We'll have to take her into the station to get photos and a possible impression from this."

He felt Leah's back stiffen under his touch. "They don't take photographs," Aubrey explained.

"Leah, they need to take a picture of the mark, that's all. They won't take any pictures of your face."

Leah turned and looked up into his face then. "Do you promise?" she said.

Reid glanced down nervously, and then looked deeply into her face,"Yes," he said, "I promise. I won't let that happen."

~~/~~

Later in the afternoon, as Reid, Leah and Aubrey left the station, they found that the road was blocked by a procession of buggies. Reid counted 54 of them, all headed in the same direction out of town. They traveled single file, and as they passed very little conversation was heard to float from them. The steady clopping of the many horse's hooves at once, was surprising in its loudness. The staff at the police station, along with Prentiss and J.J., were already standing alongside the road with the townspeople. The "English" had all come out, a show of sympathy and support as the Amish funeral procession passed by slowly, carrying the bodies of Leah's aunt and mother. One buggy broke from the line as it neared the place where Leah stood, coming to a stop to allow her to climb in. Amos Yoder and Ezra Troyer nodded toward Reid and Aubrey from inside the buggy.

"I hope she'll be okay..." said Reid as he watched the buggy roll away to rejoin the group.

Aubrey found herself moved by his words. So many times during the day she had watched him speak to Leah so tenderly. So concerned for the emotional welfare of this sixteen year old Amish girl. His job was to catch a killer, not to comfort Leah, and yet he had done so. Aubrey thought about the concern in his voice when she had phoned him; it hadn't been her imagination that he asked about her welfare. It occurred to her, not for the first time, that Spencer Reid was a gentleman.

Aubrey looked down the country highway at the line of buggies now nearly past them. So many - the entire Amish community to help one family grieve. It wasn't about the murders, although they had surely shaken the Amish. No, she had seen these funerals before, and it was always like this. Youngstown always knew when the Amish were burying one of their own because the buggies came softly, slowly through the town to the cemetery. What was different today is that the English all stood out in the open, quietly, as they passed.

Aubrey felt the faint warmth of Spencer as he stood beside her watching. She had not been wrong to take him to the hill and show him her special place, from where she watched the Amish landscape and dreamt of a quieter life in vain. She thought that perhaps he even understood. Or at least he wished to. She thought about hearing him speak to the Amish men, respectfully and on their own terms. Spencer was a man who tried hard to understand people he came into contact with. She appreciated that and admired it. She thought about the way he had so gently fingered the bite marks on Leah. Then suddenly, as she had done the day before, she did something that surprised herself. She reached out and slipped her hand into the cradle of his long fingers. And as it had been the day before, she felt no discomfort in touching him, but only a deep peace.

Later that evening, as the two walked up the steps to her house, he was still holding her hand. She opened the door and turned, smiling and expecting him to follow her inside, but he stopped. "I..need to get back," he said and looked away. But then his eyes looked back, into hers for several long moments, and she realized that in all the times they had spoken, he had never let his eyes rest on hers. He had always looked away first - in discomfort, or shyness. She didn't know which. She saw now how large and deep his eyes were - a pretty hazel brown. His brows twitched a bit, inquisitively, and a tiny smile played at one corner of his lips.

Spencer was a little bit inaccessible, and it left her unsettled but intrigued. Something told her that if she were to know his life story, it might hold many sad moments. He had shared little about himself or his past. "Please," she said,"It's been long day for both of us, I know, but you do have to eat something, Spencer. Aren't you tired of restaurants?" And when she saw him smile she said, "I can cook. I promise you won't die."

He didn't answer, but his shy smile lingered, and she turned and went inside, knowing he would follow this time.

They passed several hours then, talking and laughing. She chased him out of the kitchen after he nearly caught a towel on fire while trying to help. He seemed out of his element there. But over the table, as they ate and shared stories, he was calm and charming and funny. He told her about growing up in Las Vegas, a child prodigy and genius. His father had left, and he was raised by his mother, also brilliant and a professor of literature. She read to him and loved him, and they took care of each other. Aubrey caught something in his voice that told her there was more..something darker about those years, but she didn't pry. What she did hear between the lines, and in spite of his joking, was that he had been lonely. He didn't speak about particular friendships, but spoke about books as though they had been his treasured companions.

He had asked about her life, and she had told him. In a matter-of-fact tone, about her parents' deaths, her upbringing. Good fortune, and some loss. His eyes had studied hers again as she spoke, his patient, listening silence had coaxed her on - until she realized she had told him things, personal things, that she had not planned on telling anyone. Certainly not a man she barely knew...

Spencer had shared a glass of wine with her, but had refused a second when it was offered. She sensed something odd in his refusal, feeling that it came too abruptly, and she wondered why. She thought that perhaps he didn't like to drink when on a case.

By 9:30 they were both too exhausted to follow the trail of the conversation, and Reid had dried the last of the dishes, having been allowed into the kitchen once all burners were off. He bent to scratch Griff's neck before walking toward the door. He turned to her as he stepped back out onto the porch. "Thanks. For dinner. It was...really kind of you. And for...the talk." He fingered his tie and watched a moth flutter into the porchlight.

"I'm glad you stayed." said Aubrey."I like talking to you. I like ... being around you."

He suddenly reached up and pulled a strand of hair from her face, "Me too" he said in a whisper. And placed his lovely full mouth softly on hers. Before her mind could snap back to consciousness he was walking down the walk and away again, hands in his pockets, pace quick and focused, his hair lifting and falling in the breeze as he walked. Aubrey turned and walked back into her house and looked around the living room, thinking how empty it seemed now that Spencer Reid was gone.

~~/~~

Morgan was sitting in his hotel room watching the Amish buggy procession on the local news, when he heard Ried's door close across the hallway from his. He glanced at his watch - 10:15pm - and chuckled to himself. He didn't have to wonder where Reid had been, and with whom. The kid had surprised him. Aubrey Bennett was not a young girl. She was probably about Reid's age, educated, intelligent, some life under her belt. And she was a beauty, no doubt about that. Morgan wondered where they went, what the conversation consisted of. Magic tricks? Geometric formulas? Astronomy, maybe? He laughed aloud as he switch off the TV and settled into the bed. He hoped Reid had finally got some.